The Habbakuk chronicles
by jolyhall
Summary: This story is set two weeks after the events of the Movie. 501st and the 506th are is in the middle of heavy fighting as the Neuroi as pushing into the eastern Belgica and Gallia. Appearance of several large carrier type Neuroi and worsening winter weather are pushing both conventional and Witch forces hard. But busy as they are strange things keep happening.


This short story is set two weeks after the events of the Movie. 501st and the 506th are is in the middle of heavy fighting as the Neuroi as pushing into the eastern Belgica and Gallia. Appearance of several large carrier type Neuroi and worsening winter weather are pushing both conventional and Witch forces hard. But busy as they are strange things keep happening.

Sharing a bed with Mio Sakamoto, was in Minna-Dietlinde Wilcke eyes, both one of the best things in the world and one of the most frustrating.

For instance who would have known that the serious, some times hard headed Fuso witch was in fact a snuggler and although they tended to have very different bed times when Minna settled into bed having had to work late on some paper work, the already asleep Sakamoto would invariably hook to her with a quiet sigh. Minna would enjoy the warmth of Mio's strong body as she slipped into the welcome arms of Morpheus herself.

The thing that she did not like was she would always wake alone, Mio having long slipped out bed before dawn, like one of those ninjas she told stories about in ready room. Just once she thought it would be nice to wake up together. But as she later reflected, she should never have given the universe a chance to mess with her.

A loud noise in the dark of night, caused Minna to move from asleep to wide awake in an instant. Deeply instilled training took over, many years ago in Karsland there had been a fear that Neurio knowing the value of witches would infiltrate small units and attempt to kill witches while they slept. So far these fears had proved to be groundless but even still Minna had rolled out of bed and as right hand grasped her Walther PPK.

The large room was dark, only light was from a small night light on the wall under the window and from the gap under the door from the well lit corridor outside. It was the snow reflected light from the window that showed the source of noise.

The blue yukata clad form of Mio Sakamoto lay on her side just below the window sill, on the floor beside her was enamel washing bowl and jug and that had rested on small dresser beside her bed.

"Mio!" cried Minna. Jumping across the bed and landing by her side.

Minna quickly rolled Mio over and looked to look at her. Her eyes were closed and blood was running down into her hair from a large cut on the left side of her forehead. In the light she looked pale and sickly.

"Mio. Speak to me!"

Mio's face moved and she carefully said

"I am trying not to be.."

Minna managed to move just in time as Mio begin to be noisily sick. Minna placed her gun on the bed and started rubbing the back heaving Sakamoto.

"What did you eat last night?" She asked when the heaving had eased and Mio lay limp in her lap.

"The meatloaf, don't think it was that, woke up disoriented, dizzy, tried to stand up, fell, damn window ledge. Not felt so bad since I was child. When my magic came."

Mio turned her head to look at Minna and opened her eyes. Minna gasped. Every since the final battle over Romagna, when every Minna had looked into her eyes she had seen two gray eyes looking back at her. Now her right eye had changed and the strange red and pink glow of Mio's magic eye looked back her.

Minna swallowed her shock as the commander in her kicked in.

"We need to get you to sick bay now, Squadron Leader"

The trip to sick bay had started out with Minna mostly carrying the disorientated Sakamoto, but an encounter with Lynn Bishop who was returning from a bathroom with the two of them carrying now very dizzy and disoriented Mio. The on duty nurse, had started cleaning the wound and quickly said that concussion was quite likely. The sound of two sets of bare feet, interrupted that discussion. Upon arrival at sick bay Lynn has ran off back to her room and roused her room mate Yoshika Miyafuji.

"Sakamoto san." Said the yukata clad Miyafuji. The nurse moved out the way as Miayfuji prised open her left eye and pleased to see a normal pupil response moved to right. Glowing pink of her eye caused Miyafuji to pause but letting it fall closed again, she stood up and called on her magic and as her Shiba ears appeared and healing magic emerged from her hands.

"It's a simple cut and bruising, I can see no signs of concussion and it soon enough that we can prevent scaring and a black eye." Miyafuji said in a professional voice that she came out with when dealing with medical matters. Then she added in a more normal voice.

"Lynn could you sort my tail out please, I am all caught up."

Minna found this statement highly amusing and started to laugh.

"Well, no one is doing anything today." Commented doctor Halliwell. Handing over a mug of coffee to Minna, nodding her head towards the window were a blizzard raged.

"For once, I am glad. " she looked towards the door were Sakamoto lay asleep. "We all need a break from the past twelve days. "

"Well, for saying how busy it has been, everyone is in surprisingly good condition. " She lifted off her desk a file. "I checked everyone over as you asked and apart from tiredness, nearly everyone is good condition."

"Nearly everyone?" Queried Minna.

"Flying Officer Litvyak, the longer nights combined with having to keep up with Squadron Leader Schnaufer and the poor performance her current striker unit is suffering more than she should. I want to recommend a two day break for her, but I know that will not happen at this moment."

"I know. I would love to be able to follow your recommendation. If its any consolation rumour is that something is going happen about that soon." Minna looked towards the door again.

"Emma, is she alright?" she asked. The doctor smiled back at Minna.

"She will be fine, it's akin to the shock that can happen when a witch first awakens. By tomorrow, I have no doubt she will be chomping again at the bit and will be running Miyafuji, Bishop, Clostermann and Hattori ragged shortly after." Her face changed and became more serious.

"The question I though is what's happening?"

"Explain." Said Minna looking away from the door and straight at the doctor.

"Its is very unusual for an older witch to recover a lost ability, but not completely unheard off. There are two cases in the literature I can recall but they were from families with strong witch lineages. Sakamoto's family history shows very few and herself being the only one in modern times. But this whole event got me thinking and I tried something."

She opened her draw in desk and pulled out a small coin from a pot in there. She turned and faced Minna and held out her hand. With a look of concentration on her face a small glowing shield appeared above her hand as raccoon ears appeared on her head.

This caused Minna to be a bit startled. She knew the Emma had been in the Liberion army air forces many years ago but to seeing this was usual.

Sweat appeared on her brow as she took the coin and span it on the surface of the shield and with look of concentration began the training excise of keeping the coin spinning and in the centre of the shield. After about 20 seconds with a gasp the shield disappeared and the coin dropped to the floor.

Minna numbly picked the coin up and handed it back to the now gasping doctor.

"I am 30 years old on January 15th and although shield strengthening was my major ability, when I last tried this 5 years ago the coin went straight though the shield. I have not had time to talk to any of the other older forma witches on the base yet, but something strange is happening here."

New(ish) Character

Dr Emma Jane Halliwell

(Seen in SW Season 2 Ep 8, about 10 minutes in. I could not find name or find a reference to the voice actress English version but in Japanese version it Junko Katanishi. So I decided to give her a name and a bit of back ground. I assume forma witches would probably move on in life and some would stay attached to the military.)

Born January 15th 1916 in Paterson, New Amsterdam, Liberon. Second child of Jessica and George Halliwell. Her father being a doctor and senior consultant at Joseph's Regional Medical Centre. Educated at a mixed school until September 1929 when an incident with baseball field caused her witch abilities to emerge. She entered Fort Warren Witch training faculty on January 20th 1930 and then moved to Selfridge Field, flying Curtiss P-1 Hawks as the 1st Pursuit Group, in July 1930. She retired from active duty in December 24th 1935 at the rank of Master Sergeant. She was officially decommissioned in June 1936 when she entered Wayne State University entering the medical training program there.

She graduated with honours June 1942 as doctor and planed to marry a fellow student shortly afterwards. He got cold feet about two weeks before the wedding and called it off. It was a chance meeting in a down town bar in Detroit, with her old commander, that she applied for a Air Force corps to serve as a doctor and with the war in Europe heating up she shipped out to Britannia in November 1942. She served in a number of units until she was recruited by Minna-Dietlinde Wilcke as part of the support staff for the newly formed 501st.


End file.
